


Learning from the Best

by jboh



Series: The KaoRinko Cinematic Universe [2]
Category: BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: Does that make sense?, Gen, this fic isn't exactly about kaorinko but it's also about kaorinko
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-12 18:33:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18016151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jboh/pseuds/jboh
Summary: Gossip, friends, and good food: the perfect trifecta, as Rinko soon learns.





	Learning from the Best

**Author's Note:**

> Technically this is a follow-up to my previous fic "Practice Stage", but it's not necessary to read that to enjoy this... probably. I should stop making sequels of sequels.
> 
> Thank you again to shidi and floops for beta'ing this!

"Wooow." Lisa bent down to take off her shoes, setting her grocery bags on the floor. Rinko wordlessly offered her slippers while flushing.

"Wooooooooowwwww," Lisa repeated, looking around at the high ceiling, glittering chandelier, multiple skylights, and intimidating home entertainment system. This was one of the reasons why Rinko didn't invite people over, aside from her crippling anxiety.

 

* * *

 

"So," Lisa said as she expertly started slicing a carrot. "Soup, huh?"

"Yes..." Rinko said as she slowly chopped the radish into even pieces.

"So..." Lisa said as she expertly shoved the carrot pieces off her cutting board into a bowl with her knife and expertly grabbed another one. "Kaoru, huh?"

"... Yes..." Rinko didn't look up. _Chop_ . She was almost done. _Chop. Chop._

"... So..." Lisa said as she expertly peeled the second carrot and expertly sliced the whole thing in the same amount of time it took Rinko to breathe. "Soup for Kaoru, huh?"

"..." _Chop_. There. Rinko placed the daikon cubes into a different bowl.

"Whoa, whoa, slow down there, I can only handle so much info at one time!" Lisa laughed as she handed Rinko her carrots. "Go ahead and boil these. Seriously though, we don't _have_ to talk about it, of course, but cooking always goes faster when you gossip!"

Does it?

"... Okay, and honestly I'm just pretty curious." Lisa handed a small box over to Rinko. "Just put a teaspoon of the dashi in like... a few cups of water and we can let that simmer."

"... A few...?"

"Uh. How about two?"

"Imai-san, are you... sure you know how to make this?"

" _Sure_ I do! And you know that—I mean, otherwise you wouldn't have asked me right? Booble's right there." Lisa nodded at Rinko's phone on the counter as she got out mushrooms and started rinsing them off. "And anyways, any good chef knows that what's important when cooking is the amount of love you put into it!"

"L-lo—" Rinko's tongue felt even more clumsy than usual as she turned on another burner on the stove. It took her a few tries. "It's... it's not like...that."

"Fine," Lisa smiled good-naturedly, "the amount of _LIKE_ , then. So tell me more about these dance classes! I can't believe Kaoru of all people convinced you to start." She handed Rinko half of the mushrooms and chopped off the stems, Rinko following suit soon enough. "I mean, what does she have that Ako and I don't?"

"... Height," Rinko said. _Chop-chop_.

" **WOW**."

"But," _chop-chop-chop_ , "you both _do_ have... something that Seta-san lacks..."

"And what's that?"

"Shame." Rinko smiled as Lisa laughed loudly enough for the both of them.

"Oh, here, I'll like take the mushrooms—you wanna cut an 'x' on the top so it cooks better. And it looks cute too! If the veggies are done boiling we can go ahead and use a cookie cutter for those."

"Is that… also so they can cook better?"

"Nah, this is pretty much only for it to look cute. Don't burn yourself!" Lisa and Rinko busied themselves at the wide, marble-top counter.

"They're... ballroom, not hip-hop." Rinko pushed the cookie cutter down into the soft carrot pieces one by one. "It's... not a class, exactly. Seta-san and I are... the only ones in the studio then, so..."

"You rent out the whole room? Well, I guess it's nothing you can't afford, huh."

"I would be... too scared to try in front of... complete strangers. Seta-san knew that."

"She seems to know more about you than I thought she would, that's for sure." Lisa unwrapped the store-bought mochi and placed them inside the oven. "Aaand, let's set a timer for fifteen minutes."

"... I do like that, though," Rinko murmured as she looked down at her cutting board. The sakura shape really did make everything look cuter. "That I don't... have to tell her out loud... what I want, for things like that."

"Mm," Lisa agreed, "for somebody who can be a little dumb, she can read between the lines pretty well! Okay, go ahead and put the carrots and stuff in the dashi sauce. Here, I've got the mushrooms all finished too."

"Do we... need to put the lid on top?"

"Yeah, that'll help it cook faster. See, you _are_ getting the hang of this!" Now that they just had to wait for things to finish cooking, Lisa leaned against the sink to fully face Rinko. "You know what _ELSE_ you're getting the hang of?"

"Imai-san," Rinko mumbled, cutting Lisa off. She wasn't sure where Lisa was going with that sort of starter but she sure as hell didn't want to find out. "I just... wanted to do something... nice for her, since she's been teaching me..."

"Wouldn't you normally go for cookies though? I mean, it totally works when _I_ do it. Girls _love_ that kinda stuff!"

"Seta-san," Rinko paused. "Seta-san likes mochi soup. I think that... she receives cookies all the time, but..."

"Ehh." Lisa tapped a finger against her lip in thought. "Well, I wouldn't have guessed that of her, but hey! This way you can stand out against like, all of her fangirls, right?"

"I..." Rinko suddenly felt a little bold. A little dangerous. "I don't really _need_ to, at this point. I'm already... special, to her." She whispered that last bit.

" **OH?** " Wow. Rinko didn't know that you could make a three-mouth in real life. It was actually kind of unsettling. "So you guys do end up doing a little... _dancing_ , then." That eyebrow wiggle was very unsettling. Definitely dangerous.

"N-nothing like that! It's..." The kitchen timer beeped. Oh, thank god. Rinko hurriedly handed over a pair of oven mitts and watched as Lisa took out the mochi from the oven. The corners were slightly browned, but aside from that it still looked as pale as it did before. Rinko wished she could say the same about her face, which honestly felt like it could replace the oven if they needed an additional heat source.

"Okaaaay, it's time to add the miso in. And also time to tell Lisa literally everything." Lisa showed Rinko how to strain the brown paste in the vegetable-dashi sauce like an expert. Rinko tried to copy her in a less-than-expert manner.

"Sometimes, we do outside turns..."

"Hm?"

"Um... they're kind of like twirls?"

"Ooh, okay."

"And sometimes... she dips me..."

" **OOOH**."

"And... sometimes, she... she pulls me up a little bit more than usual, and..."

"Oh my god. Okay, you need a moment." Lisa didn't even bother to smother that wide grin on her face. " _I_ need a moment! I’m so proud of you, Rinko! You finally did it! And now," she held her elbow with one hand while gesturing grandly with the other, her eyes closed in the weirdest expression ever, "you can... climb the uh, the stairwell of fleeting innocence, and fleeting ecstasy..."

"Imai-san!"

"How fleeting..."

"The—the miso! It's done! What now...!"

"Ah, just pour everything over the mochi." Rinko spilled a little bit of the soup on the counter in her rush to follow instructions. "Oh, now you can put the parsley on top."

“How… How much…?”

“Only a little, it’s just a garnish.”

Even with the blood pounding through Rinko's ears, she could tell that the soup actually looked pretty appetizing. Binstagram-worthy, as Ako and Lisa would say.

"Well, you probably don't want me to say anything else right now, but like... you DO know what it means when you offer to make miso soup for somebody else right? Especially somebody else you're—okay, okay fine, don’t look at me like that! Uh—let's call it dipping! Somebody else you're _dipping_ with, right?"

"... Imai-san." Rinko closed her eyes in pain. "T-that sounds... worse. And," she continued over Lisa's snickering, "I am... aware, but..."

"Buuuuut?"

"We're not, um..."

"Not... official? Like confirmed girlfriends?"

"Yes, not official. And it... it would be easier for me to show this way... that I want to," Rinko fixed a stare at a random corner as she carefully thought about her words, "to be with her like _this_ than... rather than asking her upfront."

"Wait, I thought Kaoru could uhhh, what did you say earlier? Tell what you wanted without you telling _her_ , or something like that?"

"I did, but..." Rinko smiled and looked back down at the bowl of soup. "I think Seta-san is too... shy. To make the first move." It was actually a little cute, if Rinko was being honest with herself.

"Haven't you guys made out already though?" Lisa pointed out. "That's like, the second or third move at this point."

"Imai-san..." Rinko sighed.

"I’m joking, I'm joking! Maybe. Um…” Lisa hesitated. “Okay, I kinda want to say something serious now though?”

Well  _that_ didn’t sound good. At least Lisa was considerate enough to give Rinko a warning.

“I don’t wanna kill the mood or anything but… I mean, I think Kaoru’s cool and all? But are you sure that like, you know what you’re doing here? She’s real popular and charming and stuff. And it’s really easy to get swept up into her prince thing, like I don’t think she has, uh, private dance lessons with any other girl, but still.” She crossed her arms and leaned against the edge of the counter. “You know what I mean?”

Oh… So that was what this was about.

“Sorry,” Lisa said. It looked like she was chewing the inside of her cheek. “It might not be my place to like, ask you or anything, but I just wanna look out for my girl, you know? It’d really suck to see you get played.”

Rinko stayed quiet as she thought about what she wanted to say. Cooking with and for people she cared about, talking to a friend about possibly dating somebody and then them being worried for her in this way… she didn’t think she would ever get this far. She was thankful that Lisa gave her a few moments to compose herself without interruption.

“It’s not like I’m… not scared. I still am, a little. I know that often, I have trouble… doing things.” Lisa nodded, encouraging Rinko to continue. “And doing things with Seta-san is… also scary, a bit.”

“Like kissing?” Lisa’s brow furrowed.

“Like kissing,” Rinko confirmed. She shifted her weight to her other foot. “But I think that… I think I’m a little more confident, now. And I think… that I also have a little more confidence in Seta-san, too. In how she… feels, for me.

“I… of course, I can’t be completely sure... but,” Rinko smiled shyly, fidgeting with her fingers. “Seta-san is kind. And gentle. I think that she… respects me too much to do something so… half-hearted.”

Lisa hummed. “I guess… Well, I’m her classmate, but. You probably know her better than I do by now.”

“We’re… in a way, we’re both just… scared,” Rinko said slowly. “But I… no longer think that’s a bad thing, necessarily. As long as it doesn’t stop me anymore.”

“You know what, Rinko? I trust you.” Lisa uncrossed her arms and nudged Rinko’s shoulder. “And if you trust Kaoru like that, then I’ll trust her too.”

“Thank you.” Rinko looked at her feet, feeling warm. “I, I never had this kind of,” she took a deep breath. “I appreciate it.”

“We’re Roselia, you know? We’re friends. Thank you for taking _me_ seriously.” Lisa leaned over so her head lightly tapped against Rinko’s. “I honestly think it's cool that you don't do anything, like, halfway. Hey, you wanna taste test it now?"

"... Yes." Rinko pulled two spoons out from a drawer and gave one to Lisa. Lisa immediately took a sip, while Rinko made sure to blow on the broth first, just in case.

Oh.

Rinko was never one for bragging, but she felt certain Kaoru would love it.

"Binstagrammable!” Lisa announced. “D'you think you'll remember how to do this later when I'm not here?"

"I'm... not sure."

"Eh, well you know me. Always a BINE message away!" Lisa waved her spoon in the air. "Going back though, I'm like so happy for you! Like for real, I'm really happy. You know how you said that you're more confident now? You smile more too, you finally crack jokes around other people who aren't Ako, all that good stuff."

Rinko didn't think she had changed that much, at least to an extent where it was noticeable. With Lisa pointing it all out, Rinko felt pretty transparent. But sometimes that was a good thing, wasn't it? Especially among friends.

"Anyways, I'm pretty sure Kaoru will go _nuts_ over this. She'll probably say something like how she's blessed to have this chance to taste the uh, taste this god-given..."

"Ambrosia?"

"THERE you go! Ambrosia, perfect. Wow, you two are going to be SO good together."

Rinko certainly hoped so.


End file.
